FWCS Monthly Newsletter and Blog

Welcome to The FWCS Visionary: A public blog and monthly newsletter brought to you by the Communications Department and designed to provide you with news about Fort Wayne Community Schools. This is the inaugural year for this new information outlet and, as such, it may change shape and form as it grows into a resource we hope you find useful and fun. If you have any suggestions for what you would like to see in the outlet, please contact Communications. We would be thrilled to hear what you want to see.

Middle schoolers take on Amazing Chef class

While their contemporaries may have traveled to a warm sunny beach during spring break, some FWCS middle school students were brushing up on, or learning for the first time, their knife skills.

The Amazing Chef class at the Family and Community Engagement Center was the result of a partnership between FWCS Health and Wellness and Parkview Health.

FWCS Health Coordinator Natalie McLaughlin, who works with the Parkview Health nurses housed at FACE, knew she wanted to have something available for students who didn’t have travel plans during both the winter and spring breaks this year.

First, for winter break, the team put together a babysitting course designed for middle school-aged students. The first class on Dec. 29 had room for 20 and McLaughlin received 80 phone calls of interest.

She resolved to hold the class again over spring break, but she knew she wanted to do more.

In talking with Michelle Bojrab, a community outreach dietitian with Parkview Health, the pair decided on a cooking class that would focus on something quick and healthy. Something the students could put together after school alone, if need-be. In this case, salsa!

The two-and-a-half-hour class focused on healthy eating and habits, even some salsa dancing, before Bojrab began demonstrating knife skills to the students.

“We’ve taken a leap of faith with knives today,” Bojrab told the students. “So, I hope you’re paying attention.”

After sitting through instruction, the students split into three groups to begin preparing either a fresh tomato salsa; black bean and corn salsa; or a fruit salsa.

“I’m so impressed,” Bojrab said of the students. “They are having such a great time.”

She was right. The students were having such a great time that many, in both the morning and afternoon sessions, wanted to know if the class was a one-time thing or if there would be more.

McLaughlin wants there to be more. Not only cooking classes, but classes on relaxation and being mindful, and definitely more babysitting classes.

“It’s been an exhausting week,” McLaughlin said of the two full days of classes during what is ordinarily a pretty slow time for a school district. But, she said it with a smile on her face noting that, eventually, she’d like to have a class each day of winter and spring break.